I am recently putting together a proposal for a new adventure. I normally add a few donor/sponsor related services into my proposals, but this will be the first one that is mainly focusing on this piece of audience development.

Audience development is more than just audience building for events. It is the building of relationships so people become more involved and invested in you and your art. This means that attention to the development side of your arts business in an audience development fashion will bring you more financial and in-kind support.

When thinking about asking for financial support, we want to create win-win situations. We want to know what people’s reasons are for donating or sponsoring, and we want to know what they wish to receive back, if they want anything at all, to be sure we are giving them and honoring their part of the transaction.

Some people will want nothing in return. Sometimes they will simply want good stewardship to know how their money is being properly used. Some people do indeed want benefits, and they may want benefits you are not already proposing.

All in all, programs to get to know your audiences to build relationships for donor/sponsor purposes are a good practice to have in all of your audience development plans.

One-size never fits all for donation and sponsorship consideration, and treating your members as the individuals that they are will only benefit everyone!

In the future I see either a revision to my book or an additional one to focus more on this part of audience development. Bringing both sides of the arts business together through the use of audience development makes the most sense to me.